Day 23: Burası Mountain View değildir

It would be interesting to see an anthropologist or a sociologist describe Silicon Valley. It seems so much like an extended, expanded college campus, or the bits of campus inhabited and animated by the COS community, anyway, except on steroids.

Day 21: ... to shining sea

"Stanford zengin bir okuldur. Stanford'a gitsin."

Day 20: Believe

Apparently, Nevada isn't all desert, although its towns do seem to be all (well, most visibly) casino.

Day 19: All over Idaho

Not quite the craters of the moon, but still quite other-worldly.

Day 18: Wow

 Time to break out the superlatives, I think they're actually justified here.

Day 17: The World's Biggest Collection of Geysers

Now that I think about it---Geneva's Jet d'Eau resembles exactly a geyser. As usual, Nature got there first.

Day 16: Fairy-tales on the prairie

This is the historic town of Deadwood, South Dakota. It sprung up in the late 19th century when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, miners flooded in from the East, from Europe, even from China (there was a Chinatown here---a Chinatown in the middle of the northern prairie!) and hustlers of all kinds flooded in after the miners, and quickly became the regional hub of the Black Hills. Today the miners are gone, and the hustlers have turned their attention to tourists. The saloons and speakeasies are still there, and Main Street is lined with casinos. Not so inappropriate for a former gold-mining town, really.

This is the Devil's Tower (or, in [some of] the native languages of the area, Bear Lodge.) It was created when seven sisters being pursued by bears jumped unto a low rock, and one of them prayed to the rock to help them escape. The rock started to rise; the bears clawed at it even as it continued to go higher and higher, until the sisters were pushed into the sky and became the Pleiades.
Fantastic stories both, if you ask me.

Day 15: Drugstores and Bison

 "The whole middle of the country is a mystery to me. I had forgotten that South Dakota existed until you mentioned it."

Day 14: Welcome to the West

 "To me (mentally), the Dakotas are about as remote as Tibet ... "

Day 13: Last city before California

And they're Twin Cities too!

One of them is even built around a waterfall (Minneapolis apparently sprung up around a bunch of flour mills which used the St Anthony Falls as a power source.)

Spending more time in the Twin Cities made me a little sad (again) that I chose not to make this my new home. But oh well, such is life ... 

Day 12: Mooooo

"In and of itself, Milwaukee is fairly boring ... it's having history that matters."

Day 11: Repeat, further up Lake Michigan

"It's so big you can't even see the other side!"

Day 10: Visit friends, not monuments

Though somehow the only photos I have from that day are of the Bean.

At least now (after three visits, a course in radical political thought, and seeing Fallingwater) I think I understand the piece of art that is Cloud Gate better.

Day 9

The Sun is still there, but his alleged Brother with his palatial raised residence and glory and splendor and vast urban center are long gone ...

Also, somewhere else that could have been your new home, except you chose otherwise. Ah, well then.

Day 8

Wouldn't it be nice?

Also the wonderful things that can be done with a simple, unadorned catenary are really quite amazing.

Day 7: There are Ducks in the House

Not quite Venice, but still a very nice canal that Indianapolis has.

Good enough for this duck and her ducklings, anyway.

Day 6

Overheard at A2SF: "If you want to give your parents a heart attack, you tell them that you're quitting your day job after eight years to become a full-time musician ... If you want them to have a triple bypass, you tell them that your wife is also quitting her day job, to become a full-time writer."

In other news, President Obama waz here (maybe that's part of the reason for the long lunch line.)

Day 5: Welcome to your new home

Whee ...

Day 4

 "This is a nice place. We plan to be here for the rest of our lives."

Day 3: Well then

That's probably not true. A lot was happening in Pittsburgh in 1897.

Pittsburgh wasn't quite New York or Chicago, but it was still quite the city. It felt a lot like any of the cities around the Allegheny, but scaled up. And it still had a lot going for it, in terms of infrastructure and activity and goings-on and all, despite all that talk of decline. Guess that's all relative, really: the place has been declining, but from a high.